Kailh Choc are slowly taking over the WOOOOOOOORRRRLLLLLD
That would cause three issues
Bare wire is evil
Contact could be sketchy
Spend two days printing stuff will be slower than a couple hours soldering.
It’s not an art or science, it’s just soldering, it’s pretty easy. Handwriting is way harder.
I thought about hot swap sockets, but not as a single pcb, rather a bunch (87, 100+, whaterver floats your boat) single switch pcbs, that would still need soldering together, but that would be populated with smd diode and hot swap sockets. Don’t know it this exists or if it would be cost effective. And I’l solder the damn thing anyway
The amoeba single switch pcbs might be of interest to you then, they’re a single switch pcb for hand wired builds. They also come in a 2u version for using pcb mount stabs. I’ve also seen kailh hotswap sockets used with handwiring, could be viable if you’re into that sort of thing. I agree, soldering is easy but I also think it is a science given that it relies on consistent variables such as temperature, tin/lead proportion and rosin/flux which all contribute to the reproducibility of results. As far as the art aspect, I mean more in the sense of tidy and thoughtful wire routing. I know its not for everyone, but I appreciate well done wiring and to some extent I find it aesthetically pleasing. An example that comes to mind is the work of Mohit Bhoite. This is all just my opinion though.
I love these sculptures too, I like a tidy wiring as the next best thing, but that’s something I do when building several items, on the third one I got the length right and it’s tidy…
The thing, it doesn’t work less well than the ones with a hairier style.
For the built tkl I prioritized structural fins over easy wire routing, but brass bars make sense,
I think the main advantage to the amoeba pcbs is if you want to use RGB per key lighting on a hand wired build, as well as using a 2u pcb mount stab instead of plate mounted. I don’t feel they’re necessary either. I think mill-max sockets would be pretty easy to do, just putting them on the switch pins before soldering the matrix. I do like the look of the brass bars, and with 3d printing you can make structures that will keep the rows and columns separate. I’ve been using magnet wire so far as its a bit more forgiving in regards to touching other conductors and I’ve just built my keyboards with metal plates and existing cases.
Well, there is something worse. Getting them switches out. God Almighty.
'albeit with the gmmk-bundled switch extractor)
Well, I received the silent inks black and the krytox GPL 205 Grade 0 (zsxmax turbo boost RR).
Could not resist but have other things to do this evening, so I swapped the numpad with unlubed silent inks.
But I had to clip theyr lil’ plastic legs first.
@Deadeye : Silent inks are waaaaayyyy better. They seem to weight a ton compared to the clears.
But even unlubed they are sounding way much more betterer.
A smidge more vocal than the red kailh chocs, but with a lower tone.
Obviously the clears, having such a light action, have big clearances, and the silent ink, with that beefy spring, can cope with tighter ones, hence a significant decrease of the single key rattle.
Thanks for the good advice !
(And the smokey case blends in better on the black keyboard)
Obviously the numpad has three stabilizers, that still make quite a rattle, but less than with the gateron clears. I’ll have them next with a bit of krytox goo.
I’ve ordered a bag of 67g springs so that I’ll swap the gateron clears. Loose fitting and beefy spring, that’ll sound like a nerf gun.
I put the rest of them in without lube. Just to get a feeling before.
They are quite inconsistent on one aspect : spring rings on several keys
The “n” for example has a very audible pinging noise, a bit like a music box metal blade. Some others do, teh “L” is perfect.
This is not related to position on the keyboard, so I belive they are quite inconsistent.
I’ll probably try to get one out and use krytox goo, put it back and see : that seems to me a better way to learn what things do./ what effect is to be expected. I think lubing will quiet the spring for multiple reasons (less energy transferred by friction from the shaft and making the spring wire a bit heavier, thus disturbing frequencies)
All in all I still find the blacks a bit heavy, but way better. I’m only two days in, so…
Been there, done that. My story is likewise. Wanted to have a new one with ISO layout. So I went for the Sharkoon Skiller SGK3. After a few minutes the sharp edges of the caps hurt my palms. So I’ve sent it back and gotten the PureWriter with the reds. At first it was fine but the PING… Sooo loud. Tried modding it. Now it rests on a piece of cardboard without case and works fine. So I’ve got me the Royal Kludge RK84 in white. They have TKL called RK87. I usualy liked the design of the old bulky Apple keyboards so I’f figured this will do fine.
Dig this. But the lubing was still fun. And the end result is mediocre at best. I keep telling me that that I’ve not tinkered enough with it. But may be the board isn’t good. Maybe I should get other switches and another set of caps. On the other hand why should anyone blast even more money into it if your gear (in your case the sharkoon) already works fine. Since the RK is hotswap the intention is to play around with the board and not just have it laying around in stock mode for the years to come. I believe the thing that appeals so much to most of us “beginners” is to personalize your experience. You can have a computer assembled from literally millions of combinations of hardware parts. Or you can be super individual and buy one of the 3 existing apple computer types. It is your choice. Use what most appeals to you. You"ve given it a shot and it didn’t work. That’s a bummer. Please don’t be disappointed. Just try something different. There is a whole trash load of different parts that fit together. You don’t need to stay on low profile boards.
It was one of my greatest fears, that all normal keyboards would have a too high profile and will be uncomfy to type on. This fear manifested because I’ve been constatnly using low profile boards since 2002 contantly at work and at home, and the Sharkoon Skiller was a real pain in the ass to use for writing.
It seems that this is a hobby where cash should not matter. Like it is with drugs and hookers.
Why not sell your gear indeed. It it does not fit for you, try to get some cash back and try another one. Preassembled maybe so you can always send it back if it is not ok. And if it appeals to you then contact the manufacturer and try to find out which switches or switch material they’ve been using, which keycap plastic, which board, which case material and so on and go on from there to slowly purchase the parts that you need for your dream board.
I’m at the beginning of this journey and hope I could give you a small advice.
Flashed the QMK thing (work in progress), found a couple of errors (I did the right thing, and soldered without testing at any point. Like that’s what real men do)
Will need to add a led fort caps lock, later.
Fixed caps, changed scroll lock and pause for page up and down, added a caps lock led and done.
It will require a bit of butchering on a mini usb cable (ordered one, lost it, ordered a new one) but it’s done for the most part. Needs to fit the back cover and rubber pads, bit i’ll need the usb cable first.
